Joshua Valiant

by Brian Godawa

  “I have one more thing to show you, Arisha,” said Izbaxl. “I think you are mature enough to understand. Follow me.”

  He led her around to the backside of the tree.

  She stopped and stepped back when she saw the scenario before her.

  There were two priests dressed in blood covered robes who were standing by the tree roots. They were receiving a line of other men, women, and children tied in fetters and guarded by soldiers.

  The line of captives were led to the priests, where they would have their throats slit upon a wooden altar, and their blood spilt upon the bark of the tree. Then their dead corpses would be tucked into crevices of the tree where they appeared to be absorbed into the mammoth serpentine coils of the wooded roots.

  Arisha grabbed Izbaxl’s cloak tightly and stood behind him for protection. She felt like her clarity was coming back to her. Like the mushrooms were wearing off. And part of that clarity was the realization that Izbaxl must have given her the magic mushrooms to make her more open and understanding to these shocking revelations.

  Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  “Why are they doing that?” she almost cried out.

  “It is not as cruel as it appears, Arisha.”

  “But all animals are the sacred creatures of Mother Earth,” she repeated back to him. His teaching flooded her memory. He had always stressed the holiness of animal life, even plants and insects. This seemed to be a violation of that sacred truth.

  “Yes, that is true. But some creatures are more sacred than others. Do you remember how we have talked about the nature of evil men?”

  “Yes.” She was realizing that not all of life was good and that some people wished to hurt others.

  “Well, many human beings are bad to Mother Earth. They cut down trees, kill and eat other animals and spoil the land. This is the price we must pay to appease the goddess Gaia. In a way it is really—justice.”

  He let her think about it for a moment, and then broke her concentration, “Let us go, Arisha. You have seen enough for today. I am sure your young mind is overwhelmed by it all.”

  She asked questions all the way back and Izbaxl explained more details to her. He told her of the spirits in the trees and plants. He explained that the earth with all its forests, lakes and rivers, and all the living things upon it were like one connected being and that being was the goddess. And it was man that ruined that harmony by raping Mother Earth. Man was like a plague on the earth that had to be cured, just like the plague that killed her uncle last year. He lay on his bed rotting away like a living corpse. It was a hideous memory, but it painted a picture she could understand.

  Humanity must be sacrificed for the benefit of the whole balance of life on Mother Earth. Gaia was well pleased.

  But how could a tree be a deity? Could not men cut it down?

  She had seen her father carve a little human figurine out of a dead log and then they would worship it as a family. But then he would use the other half of the log to make a fire to cook the food they ate. Something about that incongruity always bothered her.

  The mushrooms had worn off by now, and it all hurt her little head. But Izbaxl had always been so kind and wise to her. She could only conclude that he was patiently helping her now to understand the mysteries of the heavens and earth that she had simply been too young to comprehend.

  When they reached their village of Banias in the foothills, it was already late. The sun was down and families were indoors eating their meals.

  Arisha said, “Should I not get home, Izbaxl? Mother and father will be angry it is so late.”

  “Do not worry,” said Izbaxl, “I spoke to them. Come with me, I want to show you something.”

  They approached the holy grotto; a huge cavern that hosted the spring waters flowing down into the Jordan River.

  Arisha paused. It was a sacred space that only the satyrs and hierodules entered. Hierodules were sacred prostitutes. The spring was considered the rivers of living water that watered the earth. She had heard that the cave led to the very depths of Sheol. Inside the grotto, the priests and priestesses served the satyrs and their god.

  She saw another satyr approach them from the grotto. It was Xizmat, Izbaxl’s younger brother. Xizmat was slighter than Izbaxl, and seemed to follow his older sibling around like a pet. Izbaxl had saved his brother’s life in a dangerous situation years back, though Arisha did not know the details. But it explained why he was so grateful and devoted to his brother.

  “Fret not, little one,” said Xizmat. “It is time to show you your future.”

  She gulped and grasped both their hands tightly.

  Izbaxl smiled at her innocence. It gave him great excitement.

  The three of them walked into the large opening and the darkness swallowed them up.

  The satyrs held her hand and guided her. They could see even in near total darkness.

  After some walking, they stopped. Her heart was racing. Her breathing was shallow.

  And then, she saw torchlight come out of nowhere and approach them.

  It was held by a hierodule, one of the holy women of the sanctuary.

  And then another torch held by another hierodule.

  And Arisha began to get glimpses of beings around her.

  They were satyrs and hierodules.

  She could sense their presence more than see them.

  But what she could see before her in the firelight of the torches was a large golden statue twenty feet tall.

  It was the statue of a god.

  “Azazel, the ancient one, god of the desert lands and lord of satyrs,” said Izbaxl.

  Arisha was hypnotized by the graven image. It was beautiful, and haunting. It looked as if he looked right at Arisha. A shiver went down her spine.

  She stared long at his face, taking in every feature. It was a humanoid being with an elongated skull and no hair. He had the goat legs and cloven hooves of a satyr. But when she looked at the skin on his belly, she could see it was sculpted as very fine almost imperceptible scales. And he was naked, his male member both embarrassing and arousing Arisha. He was muscular and held in his hand a scythe. Normally, the scythe was for cutting wheat and barley for the harvest, but in this giant’s hand it had the distinct appearance of being a weapon.

  Izbaxl spoke to her as she continued to stare.

  “This is your god, Arisha. It is he whom we serve, and it is he to whose service you are dedicated.”

  She looked up at him.

  She began to be circled by the hierodules, dressed in scanty transparent cloth, wearing veils, and moving almost like snakes. They became hypnotic to Arisha.

  “These shall be your sisters. They shall teach you the ways of the cult. It is time for you to become one of them.”

  “I am afraid, Izbaxl,” whimpered Arisha.

  “Do not be,” he replied. “I will watch over you. You will be mine, and no one will hurt you. You will first be taught to dance and then how to please men and satyr alike. It is time for you to become a nymph.”

  Chapter 4

  King Og of Bashan was about eleven feet tall, with the elongated skull and pale gray skin of the Rephaim. But he liked to emphasize his elite status by painting his face white and wearing the Rephaim distinctions of royalty.

  He was dressed in that finery now as he strode out the city gate of Ashtaroth with his entourage in black chariot. His black robe and headpiece were accented with artfully placed exotic armor pieces that reinforced the image of a warrior king.

  The city of Ashtaroth lay in the heart of Bashan just fifty miles south-southeast of Mount Hermon. As a key city on the northernmost reaches of the King’s Highway, it was the fortified post that was most crucial in the connection of Canaan to Mesopotamia and Syria where the Hittites and Mittani ruled. To get into or out of Canaan, one had to first go through Ashtaroth, and this was not easy, because it was Og’s walled city and he was the last of the Rephaim.

  Og had become infamous because his R
ephaim were gibborim giants that ruled the region with terror. Gibborim was the word used for mighty warriors of men or giants. On the Transjordan side, the Edomites had wiped out the Horite giant clan and settled around the southern end of the Salt Sea. The Moabites had slaughtered the Emim giants and secured their land now called Moab in mid-country. The Ammonites had permanently displaced the Zamzummim giants in the lower region. And the Philistine Sea Peoples overtook the Avvim giant clans on the coast of the Mediterranean.

  The two clans that were not displaced, but rather grew stronger than their enemies, were the Anakim in the southern hill country of the Cisjordan, and the Rephaim in the Transjordan, the land of Bashan.

  The Rephaim were a warrior people, not given to extravagance or display beyond the basic caste separation of ruler and citizen. Their architecture was simple, box-like and functional. But it was strikingly unlike other Canaanite engineering because it had been built according to the specification of a Watcher god.

  That Watcher god was Ashtart, patron divinity of Ashtaroth, the goddess of sex and war. It all made for a rather imposing presence in the region and a fearful reputation among the allies and enemies of Og.

  Og was receiving the arrival of a delegation from Egypt sent to collect tribute from their Canaanite vassals. Og had heard there had been plenty of turmoil in Egypt in recent years and Pharaoh was lessening his grip over the cities of Canaan. This was why the delegation was small and more economical.

  A retinue of fifty attendants guarded by a small regiment of only fifty soldiers approached the waiting Og. In the lead carriage was a nobleman emissary named Fenuku, who had been their liaison for years.

  He was small, homely looking, and rather unimpressive despite his Egyptian royal garb of white linen tunic, gold jewelry, and braided Pharaonic hairpiece.

  But Og was more interested in the being behind Fenuku. He was eight feet tall, of soldierly frame, golden skin, and wore a white linen robe with the red and white crown of Egyptian deity. His body was humanoid, but his head was that of a falcon.

  It was the god Horus.

  Horus was one of the more ancient deities of Egypt. He was the son of Isis and Osiris and was the god of war and hunting. In earlier days, he had been equated with the Pharaohs, but in more recent centuries, Amun-Ra, the sun god had risen to become king of the gods of Egypt and the Pharaoh’s own guardian. Nevertheless Horus had managed to maintain a powerful presence in the pantheon. A hieroglyph, “The Eye of Horus” was still a symbol of protection and royal power from the gods.

  And that is what made Og curious. This impressive god of war and protection had never visited them before. Why was he here?

  Og gave a dutiful nod to Fenuku, but kept his eye on Horus and bowed before the mighty being.

  Og said, “To what do I owe your exalted presence, my god?”

  Horus appeared agitated. His falcon eyes jerked around looking for someone.

  He spit out impatiently, “Where is she? Where is your bitch goddess?”

  He was referring to Ashtart, who had not accompanied Og to receive their overlords. It was an insult. As if to say they were not important enough. As if she would get to them on her own good time.

  “Forgive me, O mighty Horus. She is indisposed and did not tell me why.”

  Horus suddenly calmed himself and said with a still malevolence, “She had better have a good reason, or I will have her head.”

  Og’s throne room, like his dress and the rest of his palace, was simple and without ornamentation, outside of weapons displayed on the walls to increase intimidation. It gave one the impression that Og was too busy conquering and ruling to waste his attention on such petty luxuries as the display of wealth.

  The only thing of any consequence to him was his throne, made out of the black basaltic rock from the deserts around Bashan, and crowned with a wall display of many ornamental battle shields from his exploits throughout the years. They were beaten, cut up, and burned with the scars of battle, and they were his pride.

  But Og was not particularly proud at this moment. He was more nervous and fidgety as he sat and stared at the entranceway waiting for Ashtart to arrive. He was not even bothering to talk to Fenuku, who stood gazing up at one of the massive battle-axes hanging on the wall. It dwarfed his small human body.

  Horus stood over by a window gazing out onto the surrounding walled city below. He was fuming with anger at having to wait for that arrogant bombastic goddess.

  Canaan had been under the vassalage of Egypt for some time. After the Hyksos had been expelled from the Lower Nile area, it had become a buffer zone between Egypt in the south and the rising Mittani and Hittite empires of the north. Because Canaan was not unified, but rather a collection of localized kingdoms and assorted peoples, it was rather easy for Egypt to secure its interests in the region and even build fortress towers along the travel routes to insure compliance with Egyptian sovereignty.

  Og was a mighty ruler and he had plans of his own for the Transjordan. But alone, he was no kind of force to stand against the indomitable Egyptian empire with its extended reach. He had to go along to maintain his local control. He had to bow the knee with gritted teeth to Pharaoh or suffer his wrath.

  The problem was that the peoples of Canaan were too unruly and fragmented to be able to form any kind of union in opposition to Egypt’s control. They would have to be conquered by Og in order to be unified and that was no easy prospect, coupled with the fact that the Anakim in the southern hill country, were a powerful force and surely had their own designs on the land.

  Og was busy strategizing how to dominate the Transjordan before he would trouble himself with the Anakim.

  But he wanted them as well. He wanted to rule them all. He was just waiting for his opportunity, a twist of fate that might open the gates for his stratagem to begin.

  And that twist of fate was about to occur.

  A loud boisterous crow filled the room. “Well, well, well, what have we here?”

  Og and Fenuku looked up. Horus turned.

  It was Ashtart striding in like the Queen of Heaven up to the throne. She was eight feet tall with glimmering skin, lapis lazuli blue eyes, dressed in the scanty erotic garments of a harlot—and covered in blood. It was dripping from her everywhere. She left bloody footprints on the floor as she walked. It looked like she had been bathing in blood.

  She continue with her bravado, “This had better be good, Horus, because you have interrupted a very important spell of necromancy I am working on.”

  Horus looked her blood-drenched body up and down with disdain.

  Ashtart could see his curiosity piqued. She licked the blood off a few of her fingers like she had finished a snack.

  “Necromancy is about the dead, so I had to engage in some death.” She grinned.

  Horus was not amused. “You did not receive my arrival at the gates, you kept me waiting, and now you lack the décor of cleaning yourself up in my presence. Have you no respect for authority?”

  “And whose authority would that be, Horus? Amun-Ra, ‘king of the gods’ of Egypt?” She said it with contempt and kept a wide sarcastic grin on her face.

  “Why did he send you, and not Hapi, god of the Nile? Or Hekhet, that froggish goddess? Kheprer, the beetle fly divinity? Apis, the sacred bull? Sekhmet, the goddess of plague?”

  Horus stared at her vindictively.

  “Come to think of it,” concluded Ashtart with relish, “Where is Amun-Ra anyway? Not very sunny down there in Egypt, is it?”

  Og was confused. He did not understand what exactly Ashtart was referring to.

  So Ashtart explained it to him. She kept her piercing blue eyes on Horus whose posture had suddenly slumped in abject humiliation.

  “Oh, yes, I heard,” said Ashtart. “I have my messengers in Egypt. But my patron, King Og, did not, so let us educate him.”

  Og kept looking back and forth between Ashtart, Horus, and Fenuku. Fenuku remained mute the entire time. He was utterly worthless.

>   Ashtart strode around pompously.

  “Evidently, Pharaoh had allowed a captive people to multiply in the land of Goshen. First they were his servants, and then they became quite a fighting force guarding the approach into Lower Egypt through the Way of the Philistines.”

  The Way of the Philistines was an important trade route that connected Canaan and Egypt along the coast.

  Ashtart continued, “Now these Habiru, as we call them, became quite an annoyance to the Pharaoh, because evidently, they worshipped Yahweh and Yahweh sent plagues upon Egypt until he let them go. It so happened that these plagues were directed at various deities of the pantheon, crushing them and weakening the power of the pantheon.”

  Ashtart paused to let it dig into Horus. She wanted to make sure his impotency was properly exposed. Of course, even at his most powerful, if they were left alone, Ashtart could cut him into ribbons. And he no longer had the protective power of the Egyptian pantheon behind him.

  “And as I heard it, correct me if I am wrong here, Horus, but evidently Amun-Ra, the mighty sun god—well, shall we say—had his lights put out.”

  Og was beginning to understand why Egypt had drastically lessened its contact with him over the last few years. He had heard there was trouble, but did not realize just how drastic it was.

  But Ashtart kept going like a prosecuting attorney uncovering a crime. She had learned much from Mastema, the satan in Yahweh’s heavenly court.

  “And what exactly happened next, Horus? It is a bit unclear to me.” That was a lie. It was clear as ever to her. She just wanted to hear Horus admit it.

  Horus explained sheepishly, “After Pharaoh let the Habiru go, he changed his mind and had his army chase them down.”

  Og asked, “Did he kill the Habiru?”

  “No.”

  “I am sorry, Horus, would you speak up, please. I can hear you, but I am not sure the humans can.”

  “No,” he reiterated with a touch of anger. He sighed. “The Habiru were trapped at the edge of the Red Sea, but their god pulled back the waters to allow the Habiru to cross through on dry land. When Pharaoh’s army tried to cross after them with his chariots, the waters came back and drowned them.”